


Fight or Fly

by Nobodyhasblindedme



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Omegaverse, Implied Mpreg, Omegaverse, Other, Sci-Fi Elements, Sexual Slavery, baby factory, ish, non-con but it's not explicit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-05-23 00:31:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6098977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nobodyhasblindedme/pseuds/Nobodyhasblindedme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world has been pushed to the very brink, and pulled back - only just - by the same forces. The walls of their confinement are windowless and even from the highest rooms, all they can see is the haze of the City and the Wastes beyond. They are told they are needed here. They are told they must contribute to the rebirth of Humanity. Armin and an ever-expanding group of those who seek to find what lies beyond the ruination of Humanity will not be contained. </p>
<p>Will never submit while the while the Walls still stand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be one of my first really lengthy fics ever. (Go figure I chose omegaverse). I honestly feel like I'm driving an out of control car with this one - it goes where it will, and where it will end up I know not.
> 
> There might be bits of non-con in this fic, but it will mostly be discussed as a topic and not shown in great detail. This fix is loosely (very) based on The Great Escape and other stories similar. 
> 
> Mpreg will be discussed as a thing in this world, as will slavery, breeding, and heats, so if that squicks you, this is probably not your cup of tea. You have been forewarned. 
> 
> Thanks a billion, and I hope you enjoy!

Expecting something bad to happen never really prepares you for when that thing happens.

Armin’s lungs felt like imploding, the cold shock of night air whistling down his throat and driving him onward with almost as much ferocity as the baying of the dogs behind him.Round this corner, not that one. Two more storage barns, then – oh. Uh, perhaps not this way after all. No, wait, maybe that turn was it – oh god, why did they have to make all the buildings look the same? In the dark of the night with the garish orange of the safety lights throwing broad angular shadows across the wet ground, it was spectacularly difficult to gauge the placement of one’s self in terms of a starting and finishing point. Armin’s hair whipped around his face as he chanced a glance over one shoulder. If the veritable labyrinth of a complex he found himself braving at god-o-clock in the morning wasn’t disorienting enough, the dogs and night patrol at his heels certainly didn’t help.

Armin kept running – the only thing he could do now that they knew he was out. Run and hope his calculations and so-careful planning was not in vain.

Upon the far wall of a building ahead of him, shadows danced, vague human forms of inky black, and the shouting grew more intelligible. The boy grit his teeth and hurled onward. He’d never been one to pray, not really having it in him to believe in something like God when he’d grown up the way he had, but perhaps, on the off chance...Something small and metallic pinged off the ground a little to his right, causing the blond to yelp, hitching in stride, but not daring to spare a second look down. He hadn't needed a second look at the projectile for it to spur him on ever harder anyway.

The inch long needle of the tranq dart glinted out of the corner of his eye before being lost to the night. 

Gasping at air that seemed too thin, Armin rounded a corner of a dormitory due for demolition, ducking into the shadows as quickly as possible. If they lost visual, they couldn’t get him so easily. They’d have to rely on their dogs, and those mongrels could be duped. Not stopping for anything, Armin reached under his single layer shirt to a paper packed taped to his chest. It hadn’t been easy to conceal it from their handlers or even to collect the amount he’d guessed he’d need, but together, they’d managed. Tearing open the pack, Armin took tiny handfuls of black pepper, sprinkling it behind him in wide arcs. The scent of the stinging herb in such high concentration brought the tears at the edges of his eyes spilling down – but it was good. If it fuddled his sense of smell so much, it most definitely would the attack dogs.

Tucking the now empty paper envelope into the waist of his pants, Armin redoubled his efforts at escaping. There was now a stretch of open pavement in front of him, only half lit with safety lights. Silhouetted just beyond it though…

Armin was breathless now, chest stitching and legs in agony, but mere physical ailments were nothing in comparison to the ache in his heart, his soul it felt like sometimes, at the sight of the behemoth in front of him. 

Twenty meters high, solid stone. Though armed by a team of guards at all hours of the day and night, for Armin and many others, it was a sentinel in and of itself - dark, imposing and somehow always visible no matter where you stood in the compound.

The Wall had been his enemy from the moment he'd even known of it's existence. 

Armin took a single moment to himself hanging at the edges of the stark emergency lights, toeing the line. So many paths could emerge from here...an odd memory filtered past all his reeling thoughts probably brought on with all the sudden stress; his best friend, who, he reminded himself, he might never see again even if this night went well. 'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference.' It made some amount of sense in a way here - Armin was certainly taking a road less traveled just by being here, in this specific spot right now, not to mention all the times before, and surely all the times to come...Though where the hell his friend had heard it - poetry about, of all things, trees and leaves and wide-open wilderness in a world of gritty stone and razor fencing and skys' bellies that hung heavy with pollute and cloudy, steele-flavored rain - Armin had never been told, never asked after. Didn't feel right, somehow.

The thought added to the kindling already inside of him all the same though, a thought that had seen him through the bleakest of days and the most harrowing of nights. It drew the fire ever higher and with it, he could burn.

The sounds of the whining whimpering dogs, noses filled with the stabbing scent of black pepper broke him of his peace. Growling and without a moment to hesitate or think twice, Armin dove forward into the light, racing towards the stone Wall knowing full well he would be in the crosshaired sights of those patrolling the top. He caught movement out the corner of his eyes after a few moments - the men at the top running towards the ladders leading down towards him, but Armin had gone over this plan time and time again from every angle, though to of every possibility there might be to consider.

He could hardly breathe as the flat surface of the Wall loomed before him, like the very ending of the world's edge, save for one spot on-one but Armin could have considered. 

The little drainage grate situated snug in the masonry of the Wall was just before him, loosened from weeks worth of days sneaking away and dodging orderlies to chip at the grout securing it to the stone around it. Finally, last week, it had come loose, and it was time for Armin to set his plan into action before anyone of importance noticed. 

Oh, the guards were so close now, so very close. Armin felt droplets of dew and sweat collect on his neck and back, dripping down to wet his already soaked shirt collar. He could barely draw a gasping breathe from his efforts at escaping the mutts and their handlers but nonetheless, the young man stooped low, grasping the mesh of the grate cover and pulling. The metal came away with a small shriek of protest, but it had been weakened well. Tossing it aside not caring now if it made a horribly loud clanging noise that reverberated around the closed in space, Armin straightened his legs and prepared to drop into the unknowable, rank darkness of the tunnels below. 

Armin knew he had no time to hesitate now. Just a few seconds of indecision or miscalculation could lead to disaster of epic proportions and even the most well-laid out of contingency plans could never make up fro the margin of error that was so, so stupidly human, but...looking down at his feet, scooting forward an inch or two...he'd never made it this far before. It was right there. A square of void, no more then two feet by two feet at most, separating him from - from whatever lay beyond.

Freedom, he supposed.

He was right there, and no matter where this tunnel lead him - if it went anywhere at all - he'd still done it. Achieved even that much, managed something incredible. 

Armin sucked in a deep breathe, fortifying himself for the plunge.

Into the abyss, as it were. 

\----------

The blackness was all-consuming, swamping his senses in ways Armin thought he could only experience in his foulest night-terrors. A darkness so complete he surmised, the man falling forward with a heart already hardened to the truth, that could only be

unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update >: This chapter was actually finished awhile ago...but I was being a little weenie and had to spend so much time tweaking it and getting too anxious about it to upload. I figure I'd just get it over with at this point. 
> 
> Please forgive me

Armin woke with slate grey walls swimming across his vision. Opening his eyes only drove a dagger of pain into his skull with the bright florescent, bringing with it the vertigo and rising gorge of nausea. Allowing his head to fall to the side, Armin winced as even that small movement crinkled the sterilized pillow under his head, the sound drumming through his sensitive ears.

Ah, good old, after-effects of tranquilizer bullets; they were almost as useful in keeping him down as the darts themselves.

The room was well-known, even if it was totally alien to his presence. They tended to keep him in a different one every time, like they were afraid keeping him in a familiar place would somehow influence his ever-more creative thought processes. Idiots, his mind automatically provided, though was still far too fuzzy to allow the pessimistic emotions take hold.

Feeling too sensitive and disconnected all at once, Armin let his eyes roam freely, memorizing the details of the room. The detention cell was exactly nine feet by seven feet - small by even Armin's minimal standards. He'd measured once, when the days spent in the confinement bored him to actual tears - not an unusual occurrence. They didn't even paint the walls, just leaving the plain, rough concrete blocks exposed and stark under the unforgiving light. Armin's bandaged hands scraped over the plastic covering of the painfully thin mat, the only thing separating his bony rear and the stone ledge built into the wall they insisted was a cot.

The overhead light buzzed silently, a constant damning droll accompanying the heartbeat in his temples and the wheeze of his strained breath.

Armin blinked.

He waited exactly three seconds before doing it again, but then fluttered his eyelids erratically to lose count. A tick he'd picked up in here, and it was a bad habit to keep, the counting. It distracted him, placed him in a looping, uncreative rut. Not to mention it would drive a person mad if it continued for too long...

Just like they wanted him and everyone else here.

The omega shut his eyes against the force of the sickness that hit him with the thought - not right now. He deserved some peace, even if it left his body limp, and his mind empty...

Once he was sure his stomach wouldn't violently rebel, the boy inched himself upright by increments, weak and uncoordinated. Though the liquid sleep was still heavy in his veins, Armin wondered how long he'd really been in here. Hopefully long enough for them.

A laugh bubbled in his throat, leaving as little more then a sigh. Nothing was enough for them. He leaned back until his head rested against the wall behind him, the cool stone easing some of the monstrous ache and grounding him. One breath in...one out...one in...and one out...No! He shook against the force of his own thoughts. No counting, no...

He'd only begun to close his eyes again, the unnatural pull of medicine that didn't so much put one to sleep as it did force the body into a coma-state dragging him down again when a soft, repetitive sound came to his attention. Wrinkling his brow at he disturbance, Armin wondered if his heart was having palpitations and the drug was affecting his ability to feel them - that would just figure, wouldn't it, a demerit against his health on top of all this - but the sound persisted, unaided and totally outside of Armin's body. Outside of his cell.

If the hum of the lightbulbs and the sound of his own breathing was bad, the screech of the three-inch armored cell door opening on worn hinges was like hellfire. Armin bit the inside of his cheek at the noise slamming bodily into him, knowing the orderlies would probably enjoy it if he'd cried out.

The omega eyed the two men taking up the doorway warily. The pair was the usual that kept to this area of Armin's home, and Armin himself was intimately familier with every aspect of their presence. The tactical gear and armor was slim-fitting and black save for the insignia stamped on their right breast - two crossed swords against a white circle. It reminded Armin of the shells of the little black clickbeetles you sometimes found under the floorboards, when hiding away secrets in the dark. In the sleek chrome of the helmet's visors, Armin saw himself reflected. Small, hunched against the wall of the cell, hair mussed, squinting and haggard with the past hours' struggles.

Though they were suppose to cover up their scents due to compound regulation, Armin knew they had to be beta. Even if it wasn't said, alphas wern't allowed in this side of the compound, where Armin and his peers were kept. Not until their presence was...required.

Too high a risk of damaged goods, as it were.

One of the beetle-men strode forward, and reached for his arm - Armin repressed the want to shy away from those hands, the rubber grip on the underside of the glove digging into his skin and pulling him to his feet.

THe omega wobbled for a second, the world not quite steady enoguh for him yet, but the gurards didn't have the patience to wait, or a moment to lose, and slung Armin's body out the door of the cell. Armin was half-dragged down the long hall, lined with the same doors that he had been locked behind only moments before. Still forcing himself not to give into the urge to loose everything in his stomach, Armin didn't realize they had reached the end of their journey until a metalic bang echoed through his ears, and suddenly, he wasn't in the hallway anymore.

The two hands holding him, really the only things keeping him up, were gone suddenly, and the omega boy was left to catch himself on the concrete floor, wide and empty. His mind blank, Armin stared dumbly at the floor for a few seconds, before reality clicked, and his breath caught in his throat.

"No-!"

Not fast enough - not that it would have made any difference. Water, too much all at once and very much freezing, cascaded down on his small figure, knocking Armin breathless, gasping, arms and legs weak from here he was bent over on the unforgiving floor. Without thinking, he cried out, a weak, pain-filled keen of helplessness and pleading. Not a good move - the water ran into his open mouth and nose, Armin's instinctive call lost under the new wave of sputtering an coughing, his sinuses burning with the liquid. He couldn't - he couldn't see or hear - breathe -!

A little river of red joined the sluice as it rushed it's way to the drain in the center of the wide room. His knuckle, Armin thought, the notion as numb as the icebath, the skin tearing from where he'd curled his hand under the shock of the downpour.

After those first few hideous moments, unable to move other then to shiver, barely think, the boy moved, shifting to try and straighten a bit, scooping his hair out of his eyes and grappling with the sodden clothes still clinging to his body. He caught a movemtn out of the corner of his eye, barely - the guards, standing by the tap controls. Oh yes, he knew full well why they did this - countless times now. The icing atop his failure-flavored cake.

Armin felt a pit drop in his gut.

No.

Wouldn't think of that now.

Armin didn't let his eyes stray far from the guards as he shakily attempted to stand. The sooner he showed them he was well enough to do so, the sooner this would end. He wasn't ashamed of his body - the comunal bathing he'd been forced into every other day since his...introduction...to the compound had effectively erased any modesty he'd once harbored. Not to mention the amount of times he'd gone through this, anyway. Armin gritted his teeth, and planted his feet firmly as he stood.

He kept his eyes on the guards.

\----------

"I'm beginning to suspect you want the treatment you receive in confinement."

The omega boy said nothing in response to the person staring back at him from the other side of the overly large real-wood desk. He...wasn't really sure he could say anything. Her stare grew colder.

"Truly amazing," she stated, shaking her head as if she really couldn't believe what was sitting in front of her, or in the pages of report along with all of the others in his file, spread out on the desk in a nice, twelve point double-spaced collage of basically all of Armin's so-called amazingness.

At least the size of it was somewhat impressive.

"Your psychological evaluations show, of course, higher-than-average intelligence, and problem-solving skills. You're keeping a decent health regimen, even if your recorded daily caloric intake has dropped these past few weeks," she flipped a few pages from his file, looking over them with cool grey eyes before flicking back up to hold her gaze on his, her scent unperceivable with the blockers all workers of the compound were required to wear, "And yet...the type of anarchistic, selfish behavior like you showed last night, tells me there is definitely something grievously wrong with this picture." A fine, smooth nail tapped incessantly on the little snapshot of himself clipped to the file, Armin's eyes did not wandering away from her's, though he suspected she wanted him to drop his, show her submission in the least.

Armin said nothing.

The alpha - she had to be, almost all of the higher ranking of Administration were - grumbled low in her throat at the little omega's display. Armin felt his body tense on a flinch back he barely held in check at the sound, neck twinging at the urge to open, draw back...he could tell he was putting something out, soft as it was. The suited lady stood, expression still dark, and came around the desk, looming over him, file clutched in her clawed hands, round glasses glinting in the artificial light.

"Let me ask you something...Armin." he spat out his name, and he blinked back the whine gathering in his throat. THe things she could do to him, he knew, he KNEW...he'd seen. Felt, at the worst of times... "What do you think you're here for?"

A trick, as always - as was everything here.

He could answer. Giver her the 'reason' for his confinement in this place and thus, condemn himself by acknowedging the fact that he was somehow supposed to be here. He'd done it before, by mistake when this whole process was new. When he didn't know how to see past their bared teeth and fingers that skimmed over tranq guns.

He swallowed back the saliva gathering in his mouth, washing away those lingering, needle-like pheromones. The alpha female sat up slowly, the displeased curve of her mouth angled even harsher - he had often wondered if one day the skin would stretch too far, and what was underneath would tear through the film for all to see.

"You're making this all very difficult for yourself, Armin," she begins again, when the omega in front of her gives nothing. They both know he knows better now, but this time, she continues, "...and for the others."

Armin can't help but let the carefully constructed mask slip at the statement, jaw tightening as the meaning of the words sets in. He can see his reaction, however small, has caught her attention, and much like a great preditor, she is locked on that weakness.

"They suffer too, you know - don't think this is all just you." Armin watched the light dance in her eyes. "As I said; selfish."

Before, where his mind was carefully blank, indifferent to whatever was spewed at it, the omega found his words trapped under his tongue, forcefully locked behind clenched teeth - and he hated himself for it. The alpha woman sneered, lips lifting in a ghost of a smile. Her words were clipped, but she'd dug in her claws.

"We know it's not just you and you alone in all of this. These juvenile schemes against this imaginary enemy you make of all of us here are not constructed purely of your brainpower, or whatever resources you steal. Therefor, and I'm sure you understand," she laid her hands daintily on the desk, a single nail tapping on his face in the photograph, a deadly tattoo,

"it's only fair we punish all of you."

She waits aproximatly five seconds, glaring at the boy before her, locked upright in his chair and staring at the wood of the desk as if he'd never seen it before. As if this wasn't their first time playing this game of cat and mouse. Giving a disappointed, irritated tsk, she scoops up the papers, neatly tapping them down on the desk a few times of good measure. "I see." she replies to the silence. Tucking the documents safely away into their manila forlder, she swivles sharply in her chair, turning to face the metal cabinet behind her and opening the lock with a flack of the keycard around her neck. "It's for all of you're own good, you know. Whether you'd like to believe it or not."

The squeal of the drawer opening is too loud in the small space, the flip of paper against skin grating. The file is back in it's proper place, and the door shrieks shut again, a little digital beep signaling that all is locked-fast and away from unauthorized probing eyes.

"No."

Her grin is wide, not that anyone can see it still facing the cabinet. She turns quickly, raising a brow.

"Pardon?

The omega had moved now, stood up from his seat and standing with his legs braced apart, as if he wear about to fight, just as rigid and staring ahead. But now...ah. A furrow had creased his brow and his hands, they shiver where they are clenched into white-knuckled fists against his thighs. He opens his mouth, daring to look up and at her directly, but he stops himself once, twice more, chewing on words. She watches detached, leaning a hip against her desk. His bravery is commendable. They both knew words were all the weapon he had here - and all the defense. When he managed his his mouth, finally,

"No...I - they had nothing to do with this!"

She would admit to taking pleasure in the real wince the loud bark of laughter brought, the trickle of sickly fear in her nose, even if he stood fast still. "And you expect me to take that at face value." She saw him as everything he was in that moment - a boy, lost and with nothing but a name to his face to call his own, bargaining for not just his wellbeing, but for that of however many were behind him and his little schemes. She was not impressed.

Flicker her hand out, she gestured to the small window behind her - and it's view of the compound. The Wall. "What do you think will happen to you out there? You can't tell me that you seriously believe it's better then here - where you get three full meals a day, medical attention, cleanliness and care - for nothing?" It wasn't for nothing, though, and they both knew it. Armin's stare hardened. Her voice softened, and Armin wanted to retch as she drew nearer, a single clawed hand coming forward to fuss with the top button of his grey uniform shirt. Her voice a mockery of something tender. Motherly.

"It seems to me as if you are severely misguided by lies perpetuated within your little ring. Lead to believe the light at the end of the tunnel is the sun..when we both know - " Armin yelped as her hand shot forward, gripping his chin and cutting into the flesh of his jaw, " - that it's just the headlights of an oncoming train. Right?"

\-----------

"Morning Armin! Back so soon?"

The blond man didn't deign to answer as he drug himself forward towards the bunk, one of the handful of items he could reasonably call his own in the institution. As he walked, the sounds of the dorm quieted, eyes turned, simmering down from a dull din to a tense hush as they stared. Slumping forward on the bed, Armin just kept his gaze down.

He didn't think he could stomach looking up for any length of time.

Thankfully, (or not) though all he really wanted at the moment was sleep until eternity, his bunkmate piped up again.

"After something like that, I'd figure they's at least keep you back for reevaluation."

Armin only grumbled unintelligibly into his pillow, brain feeling broken, body feeling like a sunken lead weight that he did NOT want to have to pick up again if he could help it. Marco was nice...but at this early in the morning and with the past day's many disappointments he'd yet to admit to the rest of the dorm, Armin's patience for him was thinning.

"I think the Warden's just getting tired of seeing my ugly mug around Administration..."

It was a wonder Marco was able to disipher any of his mumbling, but the freckled omega only scoffed lightly and continued his solitary card game. Armin supposed living together for nearly five years does that to a person. The blond kept his face buried for as long as he was able, until a definite need of air drew him out, and he squinted irritably at the look he was receiving from his bunkmate.

"What? Expecting something?" he snapped.

Marco raised and eyebrow and placed down a three of hearts, his usually round, expressive face giving away nothing.

"I'm not. As soon as those search lights went on I knew there could only be a fifty-fifty chance you'd get to the grate, and when they didn't raise any other alarms or search the dorms to see if anyone else was missing, there was no way you'd made it." The omega placed down an ace. "I'm not expecting anything at the moment, and you know full well you don't owe me an explanation." Marco jerked a thumb over his shoulder, eyebrow still raised. "But if anyone should have an explanation, it's them."

Armin blinked and glanced behind him, only then realizing that the long room hadn't gone back to it's previous murmur of noise. In fact, he and Marco's conversation was practically the only noise in the place.

Their dorm was one of dozen about the compound, each built exactly the same, white plaster covering the stone blocks that made up the walls - the only thing differing one from another was the numerical designations printed in black paint outside the metal door, showing who resided on each floor, in each bunk. Each floor was one long room, stretching the length of one end to another. No individual rooms, no privacy - not even a whole lot of space between beds, where their individual numbers were printed so if anyone was occupying a bed they weren't supposed to be the Warden would know. Their numbers were taken each night in headcount, and kept on a database somewhere in the depths of Administration.

And right now, there was a small group of omegas starting to form closer to Armin and Marco, looking worried, expectant...Armin sat up, ignoring his headrush. They must have seen or smelled him coming in...God knew what was gong through their heads when, after all that, Armin Arlert had come...back. Back to bed, the dorms, the compound. This side of the Wall.

Looking at them was hard. Explaining how or why all the work that had gone into this latest attempt had been for naught would be harder.

Convincing them to help him try yet again would be the hardest of all.


End file.
